day 13

---

Day 13

A 9 o’clock start saw us heading off from North Bend and up to Vancouver. It seemed strange to be dealing with customs and immigration without having got off an airplane. We called in to see a friend of Tom and Shirley’s but missed her by about ten minutes, we will pop in again tomorrow. We then headed to Terry and Mary Snutches home where we found Terry ready and waiting with the beer iced down! After a brief leg stretch and rehydration break it was off for a quick tour around the city. Terry’s place is about 4 houses from Pacific Spirit Park which is the largest urban park in the world. Vancouver is also home to Stanley Park, which is the second largest urban park in the world. There are nice beaches and green zones all through the city and three ski able mountains almost in town. We went to historic Granville Island which is full of craft stores etc and a huge fish and produce market. We also took a trip on the water, the place is full of little water taxis zooming all over the harbour. This is a real short visit as we head back tomorrow to Seattle. I am most impressed with Vancouver and would one day like to spend more time here. It is different to see a city where so many people actually live in the city itself rather than out in bedroom community’s, also there are no freeways inside the city, so traffic spreads around through all the major streets which I thought seemed a better way to manage traffic and certainly it looks a lot more attractive than concrete spaghetti all over the place as in both Portland and Seattle.

Ngai & Shirley would like to clarify the “trip on the water”, we were only on the water 5 minutes max. There was a nice bar, so of course it was a mandatory stop. Hit the bar to quench our thirst and that was the end of that sightseeing tour, albeit a great choice. We both were thirsty anyway. We both think it is time for confession time.
Shirley - as Greg mentioned earlier Vancouver’s traffic is all on regular roads not motorway. So when I noticed a long stream of traffic coming towards us with their lights on I though it must be a big funeral. Silly me, I forgot that all the modern cars automatically drive with the lights on.

---

Photos

canadian border
crossing into Canada

cat door
note the "kitty key pad "